Continue Reading October 29th, 2009
pMajority Leader Harry Reid’s office just sent me an outline of the Senate Democrats’ plan to extend and expand the home buyer tax credit. Much of this was covered in my a href=”http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2009/10/home_buyer_tax.html”previous blog post/a. But there’s one new detail that hasn’t been reported elsewhere. It will cost $10.8 billion. That’s a bit more expensive than the existing credit, which will have cost taxpayers about $8.5 billion by the time it expires Nov. 30./p
pSome more details: /p
p*The credit is available for homes that go under contract by April 30, 2010 and close within 60 days after that./p
p*It will be attached to a bill to extend unemployment benefits, but it’s unclear when that bill will be voted on./p
p* First-time buyers (those who have not owned a home for three years) can claim an $8,000 credit. Homeowners who buy a new principal residence after living in their current home for at least the last five years can claim up to $6,500./p
p*Income limits: $125,000 a year for individuals, $225,000 a year for married couples./p
p* The proposal will include anti-fraud measures, including minimum age requirements and additional authorities for the IRS./p
pI ran the $10.8 billion figure by Moody’s Economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi, who hasn’t yet come up with a cost figure for the current proposal. But he said “that sounds in the ball park.”/pimg src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bw_rss/hotproperty/~4/qgCaehkVLpw” height=”1″ width=”1″/ Read more »
Continue Reading October 29th, 2009
pimg alt=”balloon.png” src=”http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/balloon.png” width=”247″ height=”119″ //p
pLandscape architect Ken Smith has precisely the right idea for how to build Orange County Great Park, the ambitious urban park planned for the site of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station south of Los Angeles in Orange County, Calif. The park was supposed to be financed by real estate development, but homebuilder Lennar Corp., which took control of the base in 2005, has put construction on hold because of California’s massive housing bust./p
pSmith’s idea: Build just a little of it, attract some crowds, garner interest and support, and then go from there. According to a href=”http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-great-park1-2009oct01,0,6540980.story?track=rss”an article in The Los Angeles Times by Paloma Esquivel/a, the bicoastal Smith was inspired in part by New York City, where builders of a park along the Hudson River built a constituency for the project by putting in temporary trails for jogging, biking, and roller-skating. /p
pNot that Smith has much choice–no one’s going to sit down tomorrow and write him a check for the $1.3 billion that he thinks will eventually be needed to build “the first great metropolitan park of the 21st Century.” /p
pPragmatically, Smith started out by building a Preview Park on a tiny piece of the 4,700-acre former military base. Its main attraction is an iconic crowd-pleaser, a big, orange, helium balloon that gives park visitors panoramic views from an altitude of 400 feet. More than 100,000 people have flown in the balloon–not a bad way to engender optimism for the bigger project./p
pIn August, according to a href=”http://www.ocregister.com/articles/park-great-city-2520846-lennar-developer#”an article in the Orange County Register/a, the city of Irvine, Calif., and Lennar agreed that Lennar would commit $58 million over the next five years for infrastructure and maintenance in the park, and would give the city 135 more acres of park land. The article quotes Emile Haddad, Lennar’s former chief investment officer, whose new company, Five Point Properties, recently took over management of the Great Park. “We’re trying to set this thing to be successful based on the world we live in today,” Haddad said. (Meaning: A post-bust world.)/p
pThen, earlier this month, the park’s board of directors approved $65 million worth of construction on 200 acres, including sports fields and gardens but not a planned lake. /p
pOrange County Great Park isn’t exactly great yet. It isn’t even exactly a park. But you do what you can./pimg src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bw_rss/hotproperty/~4/rLTiFkis_Xs” height=”1″ width=”1″/ Read more »